


The Master’s Exile

by kiwideviant



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationship, Gallifrey, Gen, Isolation, Post-Season/Series 12, Sort Of, Suicidal Thoughts, Thoschei, Whumptober 2020, dark!Doctor, honestly its more like she‘s tired of the masters shit but doesn’t want him dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:40:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26957476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiwideviant/pseuds/kiwideviant
Summary: The Doctor let the Master live, but with a price.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	The Master’s Exile

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for Whumptober 2020. The original is on my Tumblr but I decided to post it here as well.

After the release of the death particle, there was no organism left alive on gallifrey. Ko Sharmus and the cybermasters disintegrated in the explosion, leaving no trace of life on the dead planet.

Nothing remained. Expect for one organism.

A TARDIS had appeared, the moment before the button was pressed, right in the middle of the matrix room. It whooshed and waved in and out of space until it actualized on the surface of gallifrey, at the perfect point in space-time. The good thing about the timelord invention is that the exterior is impenetrable. Nothing can get through the walls of the TARDIS, so it acted as a shield to protect what was inside.

After the release of the death particle, there was one organism left alive on gallifrey, saved by a TARDIS programmed to appear there and only there. It was sent as a gift, a message. A final message from the Doctor.

This TARDIS, after its final trip to the matrix room, never moved again. No amount of will, or knowledge, or begging and thrashing and screaming made this ship work again. It became an anchor. It was the shackles the imprisoned the destroyer of the timelords to the surface of gallifrey.

This was the Master’s exile.

He laughed, void of humour.  _ The last living organism on gallifrey _ . It must surely be fitting—exiled to life on the planet he destroyed, for eternity.

Being alone wasn’t so bad. He had his thoughts to keep him company. It’s not like he didn’t try to leave any way he could, though. The damned TARDIS was useless. He used it as a shelter, but all the rooms were empty, having previously been unused. He tried every way he could to get to working. He tried every way to send a signal into space so someone would know he was here.

He was surprised no other species wanted to take this barren planet for their own. Perhaps the story of the genocide of the timelords got around, and no one wanted to be next.

Years passed. Of course, the Master had no concept of years. Years were mere days in his eyes, but years were everlasting eons, too. All the same, he had no recognition of exactly how much time passed. How long had he been stuck here? How many turns of the planet had he experienced?

He spoke aloud his thoughts whenever he could. That being, every moment he was awake. Maybe he spoke in his sleep, but it was impossible to be sure. He talked to himself in English, not Gallifreyan. The timelords taught him his mother language and he would be damned to use a dead language that belonged to those who lied to him about his entire existence. He understood the English well enough, so he could bare it.

He would talk about a lot of things. As he took a trip down memory lane, walking through the city, he recited stories to himself of his childhood. He would talk about his first day at the academy, and the day he met his best and oldest friend. The stories ended when he got too worked up at the realization he would never experience that communion ever again. At the end of each day, he went back to the matrix room and entered his broken, dead TARDIS.

There was one day in the sea of days where he just... gave up on trying to escape. He accepted his would likely never see anyone again. Not a timelord, not a cyberman, not a single other living thing...

The talking got more jumbled and scattered the more time he spent on Gallifrey. Sometimes he was silent for as long as he was voicing his thoughts, only because the thoughts stopped coming, and the memories became boring. He couldn’t remember when the talking ceased and the listening started up. The voice sounded like his own, and sometimes it didn’t. It would break through the surface and sound like him, but when it dipped underneath into the treacherous waves, it merged into a myriad of voices he heard through out his life.

And then there were the times where it would hit a point, deep beneath the waters, down in the depths were the light could not reach, and the voice sounded like the Doctor.

There must have been some sort of hope there. Some semblance of light, stemming from the darkest parts of his hearts, that kept him from ending it. This was a stolen body—he had no more regenerations after this. If he wanted, death could be quick and painless. Though he thought about it, and considered it, and even planned it out once, he never acted on the desire. The voice, in the form of the Doctor, convinced him he could find a way out.

“You’re really gonna let me outlive you? You’ll be admitting defeat.”

The Master winced hearing those words from the Doctor’s voice. The idea of letting her win made him physically shiver. But, he wouldn’t let the voice affect him too much. It wasn’t real, simply a side effect of being alone for as long as he had.

He was leaning against the outside of the TARDIS, no sound to be heard. He searched for companionship anywhere, even in the dead spaceship. All he wanted was to hear the sound of someone’s voice other than his own. A real voice, from a real being. Even a simple acknowledgement or sound would do. Just, anything that didn’t come from him or his lonely mind. He would take anything at this point.

“Still here?” The Doctor spoke up, voice bouncing off the room walls. Even a voice in his head sounded so real. It wasn’t nearly enough for him.

Of course he was still here. He was stuck in limbo, where death for him wasn’t an option yet he couldn’t escape this torment. All he could possibly do was wait. If he was lucky, she would come back for him eventually. There was a reason she didn’t let him die that day.

Long before his exile, the drums had become apart of his life. He never noticed them anymore unless directly pointed out. Today was different, and he noticed four knocks to his left. He lacked the energy to turn his head, though a spark of confusion struck him. Why were the drums different this time? With a sluggish movement of his head, he looked to where the noise came from.

What was the next step after hearing voices in your head? Why, seeing them personified, of course!

The Doctor had a somber expression on her face, leaning against the entrance of the matrix. It was hard to tell what lay within those old eyes. The Master knew he looked much worse. Exhaustion littered his brain constantly and his sea of thoughts had run dry, leaving a power-hungry timelord to rot in isolation. The both of them were not themselves.

He stared longer, and he became unsure if she was physically there or it was his eyes deceiving him. Drops of rain fell to the surface of his mind and he greedily soaked them up. She was a raincloud above a cracked desert, giving him a bloom of energy after years of nothing, stirring him to he feet. It was too real.

As he continued prying his mind for an answer, she stood there, waiting. It soon became clear what was really etched on her face. There was no pity, or hope, or friendliness. It was completely different to how he saw the Doctor the last time they were together.

In those stone cold eyes resided the scorching embers of a fire that ran out of fuel. There was no remorse there, only the fury of the Doctor.

She held restraint over the fire that burned within, while the Master felt like he was overflowing with joy. She came to check on him. A mistake on her part, but he knew she couldn’t resist forever.

Love did strange things to a person’s psyche. This love, in particular, is without remorse. This love is an ongoing trail of mistakes and rage and betrayal. This love is the genocide of the timelords and the mourning of lost friends and the beginning and end of the universe all at once. Their love will never burn out for as long as they are each other’s fuel.


End file.
